


it's the long kiss (it's the curl of a sigh)

by leigh57



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 06:08:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6107494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leigh57/pseuds/leigh57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He always thought that the best part of sex was well, sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's the long kiss (it's the curl of a sigh)

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote a little thing. It’s actually a prompt response for [@littlepawkiss](http://tmblr.co/mqlJzMxHJb5IvfeRe78uAvQ) on tumblr, but it’s from so long ago that I can’t even find the ask now! The prompt was kissing, and Caro gave me three kinds: seductive kiss, French kiss, and “doing the do” kiss. (I kinda cheated on the last one, sorry?)
> 
> Please read this  _only_  if you are able to handle truly ridiculous levels of squash/fluff/sugar shock. My response to show stress is to make everything in writing fluffier so … yeah.
> 
> This also goes out to [@empressmcbride](http://tmblr.co/mhp_WCw7yMwPeo_WLk5hMJA), for a whole lot of reasons. 
> 
> The fic title is from Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “[Old Love](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdVArscwCMbk&t=MGJkMDRhNzgyMmE3M2NlNTYyNTU2NTJkMjM5ODFjMTUyMjRhZmE5YSxFcGtlMjNBdQ%3D%3D).” It’s such a beautiful song. Give it a listen if you have five minutes:)
> 
> a/n: This is set at some amorphous time a few months after ‘No Way Out.’

He comes back from his latest trip with Aaron filthy, starving, tired as hell, and covered in mosquito bites (either the repellant they grabbed is out of date or the fuckers figured out how to bite right through it -- regardless he itches like a sonofabitch in places that shouldn't be allowed to itch).

He wishes it wasn't the middle of the afternoon, because then there wouldn't be endless dragging hours to face before he could have her all to himself. All that small talk and smiling, as if dealing with Aaron's relentless cheer and chatter for weeks wasn't bad enough.

Slipping in the front door, he takes off his filthy boots and listens, assuming Carol's either in the kitchen or upstairs trying to get Judith down for a nap. But the house is silent, no noise save the muted hum of the fan in the living room window. He's about to head upstairs when he sees her, completely passed out on the love seat with a fallen book half open a few inches from her ass.

(He stares at the cover for a minute and realizes it's one of those shitty romance novels she doesn't even like but sometimes reads out of desperation -- some bronzed asshole with his shirt open standing on a beach with a generic-looking redhead swooning in his arms. The redhead's boobs remind him of Merle's cherished porn collection. He makes a mental note to look for better reading material on the next run -- at least a biography or something. He wishes he could find some Jane Austen, still remembers Carol's offhand comment to Michonne about how long it had been since she'd read _Pride and Prejudice_.)

Carol's hugging her knees and her neck's leaning at an awkward angle that'll probably make it hurt if she stays that way too long, but it's so rare for her to be deeply asleep that he can't bring himself to wake her.

He wants to touch her so much he can feel the heat in his hands (it's been almost three weeks), but he clenches them into fists and shoves them in his pockets instead. After a few seconds of watching her (her hair's tousled where it's smushed into the couch and she's still wearing an apron with an otter in a chef's hat on it, captioned "Otterly Delicious" -- he can't help smiling), he sneaks upstairs as quietly as he can to take the world's hottest shower, but not before grabbing the monitor so he'll hear Judith first if she wakes up.

_________________________

When he comes back downstairs -- skin pink (even raw in a few places where he couldn't stop scrubbing) and teeth brushed -- she's standing by the stove, stirring something that smells like garlic and heaven and humming so softly that he can't make out the tune.

She turns her head the moment she hears footsteps, and when her eyes light up and she flashes him that smile that makes his knees feel weak and funny, all the stuff he had saved up to say to her slips right out of his mind.

"You should have woken me up when you got back!" she exclaims, leaning forward and blowing on the spoon before she samples whatever's bubbling in the huge stainless steel pan.

He chuffs. "You looked too cute sleepin' all curled up like that."

She rolls her eyes at him. "Thanks for grabbing the monitor. She's still not awake?"

"Nope. Out like a light." He smirks and glances around the kitchen. "Anyone else home?" he asks, trying to sound innocent. He fails so spectacularly that he pretty much winds up sounding like he said, "Wanna do it on the counter?"

"Just me and Judy," she replies, and the tiny arch of her eyebrow makes him wonder if she's actually trying to kill him. Her voice softens and her mouth turns up at the edges, that tiny beginning of a smile that makes him feel as if maybe he's melting, right there. "I'm glad you're back," she murmurs.

He closes the distance between them in three strides and slides his arms around her waist from behind, pressing his face into the warm skin on her neck. "So it's okay if I do this?" he mumbles, kissing his way up to her ear, where his tongue darts out for a taste.

She shivers and elbows him in the ribs, but he can feel her grinning. "Not if you want me to remember when I'm supposed to take out the bay leaves."

"Fuck the bay leaves. I wanna kiss you."

"Really?"

She loves making him work for it, and god help him but her smartass attitude only makes him want her more.

"Yeah, really. Been thinkin' about it every night for three-"

But he can't even finish the sentence before she's turning in his arms, her hands on his face and her lips brushing soft over his. She tastes like garlic and chili powder and the only thing in the world that matters to him in that moment.

He kinda wants to lift her onto the counter and start unbuttoning her shirt, but he settles for pressing her against the stove and reaching for her face so he can hold her still enough to kiss her like he wants to -- slow and soft and deep. He smooths his tongue along hers and feels her sigh, hips wiggling to bring him closer.

"Missed you." His words vibrate against her lips and she smiles, the warm shape of her mouth softening more fully into his. He can feel the give as she relaxes completely, her fingers rubbing the back of his neck and her body all warm and eager in his arms.

But it's only another minute before she pulls back (cheeks flushed bright pink, a dash of flour under her left eye) and whispers, "I promise we'll pick this up later, but Rick and Michonne will be back any second and I'd rather not look like-" She gestures to her face as if that explains everything.

He chuffs, letting her go and grabbing a snap pea from the plate beside the stove. The sweet crunch reminds him how fucking hungry he is, so sick of canned beans and outdated trail mix. "Like I was feelin' you up in the kitchen?"

She bites her lip to ignore him. "Can you hand me the rice? Top shelf on the left."

He does as she asks, stretching to grab the bag she can't reach. When he leans over to hand it to her, he sneaks one more long, open-mouthed kiss along the back of her neck, satisfied when she shivers and elbows him in the ribs, playful. "Later?" he says, trying not to sound like a completely needy asshole. "Promise?"

She turns to face him fully, licking cayenne pepper off the end of her finger for way longer than necessary. "Promise." She clears her throat and takes a deep breath. "Help me set the table?"

"Yeah," he grumbles, willing the next few hours to vanish.

_________________________

She's pretty much draped across his body, sweaty and breathless.

Beautiful.

It's finally later, and he's just so fucking . . . happy.

She's running her thumb over the edge of his jaw and down the side of his neck, and it somehow manages to feel both soothing and erotic at the same time.

He loves this.

He loves everything about this.

He always thought that the best part of sex was well, sex. Now that he knows what he was missing, he wants to laugh at that idiot former version of himself.

Because the after is _so much better_.

He'd give up sex forever if he could still have this -- the flushed skin and the quiet breathing and the gentle touches and the broken bits of conversation about nothing or everything and all the in between.

It's what he thinks about when he's listening to Aaron snore or talk in his sleep, when he's on the eighth hour of watching some jackass's daily routine to see whether or not they might wanna bring him home, when he's choking down another chewy piece of dried banana and wondering if any of this bullshit is even worth the effort.

Because _she_ is worth the effort.

He leans up to kiss her, over and over, sweet and slow and anything but goal-oriented. The kind of kisses that might turn into round two and might turn into falling asleep all tangled up together, and he could not possibly care less which way it goes.

He has exactly what he wants.

Whatever he's feeling, there's so much of it bouncing around inside him that he almost hurts. They're still relatively new at this whole . . . thing, but he's been trying to use words instead of just hoping she knows.

Because the goddamn thing is, she does know. She always knows.

But she still deserves the words.

She deserves everything.

(They're longer now, the magic spaces between the shadows that filter over her face out of nowhere. The spaces between the moments when he looks at her and realizes that she's just . . . gone. Far away in her mind. Somewhere he can't reach.

Now that he knows the whole story, it's somehow easier and still the hardest thing he hopes he ever has to do.

The nightmares come -- violent and sudden and wrenching to watch -- but those are spacing out too, and it's slowly getting easier to talk her down, to help her figure out how to breathe, to pull her out of a sweat-soaked shirt and into a clean one before drawing her close and stroking her back because he has no idea what else to do.

Probably because there is nothing else to do.

She doesn't fight the onslaught like she did, at first, right after she told him the whole truth. Now, she mostly surrenders, and although he's incapable of watching her in pain without wanting to crack in half himself, there's some kind of fucked up comfort in knowing that at least it's all real now.

No more sweaters and starched shirts and stiff upper lips.

Just her.

And she's so much more than anything he ever allowed himself to want in this goddamn life.)

He clears his throat. "Thought about this the whole time I was gone." His voice sounds like sandpaper, the exhaustion of fitful naps in the cold, hard bed of a truck catching up with him like it always does when he gets back.

"Sex?" she teases, moving her fingertip over his bottom lip before kissing him again.

"Stop."

She laughs, and the crinkles at the edges of her eyes, the ones he didn't see for what seemed like thirty different lifetimes, make his throat start to ache. He should probably be pissed about what a sap he's turning into, but looking up into the bright blue light in her eyes, he cannot find a fuck to give. "Sorry," she amends. "I'll be serious. What'd you think about?"

"Kissin' you." He says it and doesn't add anything. Just studies her face as her eyes turn a touch shinier than they were a second ago. She's quiet; the fingertip tracing his chin goes still as he watches her process the meaning behind his words.

"Really?" Now it's her voice that sounds as if it doesn't quite work.

He shrugs. "Never used to like it. Felt like a waste of time, just somethin' I had to do if I wanted to get to the main event."

"And now?"

He runs a finger all the way down the irresistible curve of her spine, stopping just before he gets to her ass because he doesn't wanna distract himself. "Now I don't even care if-" Fuck, he's terrible at this crap. "If there's a main event. I like kissin' you just to . . . kiss you," he finishes, all in a jumbled rush.

She looks at him for a long beat, eyes even shinier than they were a second ago. Then she leans to kiss him again, and he can feel the slight tremble in her lips as they touch his. When she stops though, she's got it under control. "Maybe next time," she says, smoothing his hair away from his tired, itchy eyes, "someone else can go and you can stay here and kiss me."

He grins, finally allowing his hands to wander over her ass while he rearranges her body to be completely on top of him. He likes it that way -- her skin all over his -- and she's so tiny he can barely feel her weight anyway. "I'm not goin' anywhere for a long time," he says, his voice low and crackly in the quiet room.

The contented hum that rises from her chest before she nestles her face in his neck is his new favorite sound.


End file.
